Senior Software Engineer Interview Experience - Canada
Process
Applied online. Had a recruiter interview, followed by a technical screen, which went well. Then a hiring manager interview, which also went well, and I was moved to the virtual onsite.
The final round was frustrating.
The same hiring manager from the first round was assigned to the final round. He seemed lost and didn't know what else to ask.
The engineer who conducted the design interview wouldn't let me talk. He kept interrupting me every other word, so the design couldn't flow.
The interviewer who conducted the coding interview made up his own question, but I don't think he ever tried to solve it himself. He was not able to clearly communicate what he was looking for, and the actual solution for the problem was very convoluted and would require managing deeply nested data structures. The question was not appropriate for a coding interview at all.
Overall, a negative experience.
Affirm, please train your engineers on how to conduct interviews.
Questions
Tell me about the most challenging project you have worked on.
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 11 interview experiences for the Affirm Senior Software Engineer role in Canada.
Success Rate
Affirm's interview process for their Senior Software Engineer roles in Canada is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.
Experience Rating
Candidates reported having mixed feelings for Affirm's Senior Software Engineer interview process in Canada.
Affirm Work Experiences
- 4.0Nice company to work forSenior Software Engineer • Former EmployeeToronto, Ontario, CanadaJanuary 8, 2025Pros: - Good culture. - Work-life balance is nice.Cons: - Nothing to add in cons
- 5.0Great Place to Work!Senior Software Engineer • Current EmployeeSan Francisco, California, United StatesFebruary 26, 2018Pros: People are awesome; the company is full of A-players. People know what they are doing. Collaboration between teams is actively encouraged. It is possible to spearhead projects even if you are relatively new, since there is so much to do. You will learn a lot if you work here.Cons: There is less transparency than before since the company is getting bigger, but that is to be expected. There is pressure to perform.
- 1.0Tech stack and eng culture are lackingSenior Software Engineer • Current EmployeeApril 5, 2022Pros: Interesting product space. Great benefits.Cons: Let's be frank, every company has its issues. Affirm is no different. Why do I have such contempt for Affirm these days? Several reasons, but let's start off simple: its immense tech debt. I know, I know, all companies have tech debt. However, I have never disliked working in a codebase/tech stack even close to as much as I do working on Affirm's. From unit tests to integration testing to staging to production deploys to language/repo tooling to telemetry, I cannot think of a single part of our tech stack that meets baseline requirements. It certainly shows. We have regular outages (e.g., a two-part, two-day outage spanning a total of 8 hours in late 2021) and are still running our core services in Python 2 (it is the middle of 2022). It is easy to understand why; we relentlessly prioritize new product initiatives over fixing our decrepit stack. Once again, I will acknowledge this is typical in industry. But the state of our tech stack is simply not tenable and has only gotten worse these past couple of years. I would recommend not joining Affirm solely due to this issue. Don't even get me started on the abysmal engineering culture. Briefly, there is no cultural expectation to support other teams, and doing so is a glorified exception instead of the standard.
Affirm Interview Questions
